Newspaper Page Text

Page
4
TIlURSDAY,
MAY
21,
1987
THE
LIMA
RECORDER
THE
LIVONIA
GAZETTE
THE
HONEOYE
FALLS
TIMES
HONEOYE
LAKE
COURIER
~
Capi~al
Ideas
by
John
Lesniak,
Albany
Bureau
Chief
THE
CONSTITUTION,
R.I.P
(Albany
-
5/13/87)
This
year
Americans
shall
be
celebrating
the
bicentennial
of
our
Constitution,
that
document
conceived
in
liberty
and
born
of
genius.
Instead,
I
suggest
that
we
mourn
its
passing,
for
the
Constitution,
like
other
giants
of
the
past,
Shakespeare,
Mozart,
Bach,
Washington,
is
dead.
The
exact
date
of
its
demise
is
still
uncertain,
but
future
historians
shall
probably
concur
that
it
caught
a
terminal
disease
circa
1933
and
was
felled
in
the
mid-
1960's.
The
disease
is
socialism;
its
symptoms,
massive
government
and
oppressive
taxation.
The
genius
of
the
Constitution
lay
in
the
fact
that
it
worked
for
so
long.
Liberals
are
fond
of
speaking
of
the
Constitution
as
a
\living
document,\
by
which
they
mean
that
it
exists
for
today,
free
of
historical
baggage.
As
a
pretext
for
twisting
the
plain
language
of
the
Constitution
to
fit
whatever
schemes
strike
the
elites'
fancy
at
any
particular
moment,
the
concept
of
the
\living
document\
is
reprehensible.
However,
our
founding
charter
was
alive
once:
it
was
possessed
of
an
overarching
idea
which
infused
an
animating
spirit
into
its
words,
and
that
idea
was
freedom.
Freedom
was
the
genesis
of
the
Constitution.
Freedom
was
what
the
Constitution
sought
to
promote.
Freedom
was
the
lodestar
by
which
all
its
precepts
were
guide<i
And
freedom
was
the
living
idea
which
the
constitution
handed
down
through
the
generations.
The
Constitution
was
written
to
secure
our
freedom,
freedom
from
foreign
countries,
freedom
from
unwarranted
intrusions
into
daily
life,
and
freedom
from
the
tyranny
of
the
majority.
The
Constitution
put
forth
a
mechanism
for
guaranteeing
that
freedom:
separation
of
powers.
By
splitting
up
the
central
government
into
three
coequal
branches,
and
leaving
vast
domains
to
the
States,
the
Framers
wanted
to
make
things
rough
on
whoever
was
in
control.
They
wanted
to
make
it
difficult
to
enact
legislation,
believing
that
by
erecting
a
formidible
gaultlet
only
meritorious
statutes
would
pass.
The
emphasis
was
on
preventing
the
government
from
acting,
reining
in
the
impulse
to
dictate,
curbing
the
desire
to
legislate
one
person's,
or
one
faction's,
version
of
the
good
society.
Presciently
sensing
the
terrible
havoc
which
would
be
wrought
by
the
social
engineers
of
the
20th
Century,
the
Framers
tried
their
best
to
insure
that
even
if
the
people-who-think-they-have-
all-the-answers
got
into
power,
they
could
not
do
too
much
damage.
The
genius
of
the
Constitution
lay
in
the
fact
that
it
worked
for
so
long.
For
about
150
years,
the
Federal
Government
operated
pretty
much
as
envisioned
by
the
Framers.
Then
came
FDR.
The
patrician
Roosevelt
was
going
to
solve
the
problems
created
by
the
Great
Depression;
as
with
most
government
programs,
he
made
the
problems
worse.
But
he
made
the
people
feel
good,
made
them
feel
secure,
made
them
feel
as
if
LIMA
DEPT~
CARNIVAL
June
24,
25,
26
&
27
they
could
rely
on
government
to
bail
them
out.
And
the
people
liked
that.
The
people
liked
hearing
that
someone
else,
government,
was
going
to
rescue
them,
that
they
did
not
have
to
worry
about
their
fate.
The
Constitution
put
forth
a
mechanism
for
guaranteeing
that
freedom:
separation
of
powers.
The
problem,
of
course,
was
that
all
this
government
intervention
did
not
come
without
costs.
There
was
the
immediate
cost
in
terms
of
dollars:
if
the
government
was
going
to
spend
money
to
help
out
the
citizenry,
then
it
had
to
get
the
cash
from
somebody,
and
that
somebody
had
to
be
the
citizenry.
The
personal
income
tax,
which
had
heretofore
only
been
used
against
the
very
rich,
was
turned
against
the
middle
class.
Knowing
that
most
people
would
take
to
the
streets
in
armed
rebellion
when
presented
with
a
bill
for
a
whole
year's
taxes,
that
most
pernicious
form
of
larceny
was
visited
upon
all
wage
earners:
withholding.
With
the
institution
of
withholding,
workers
could
be
robbn..,d
a
little
each
week
and
lulled
into
a
utopian
stupor
with
politicians'
dreams
about
the
blessings
of
just
one
more
government
program.
But
worse
than
the
practical
effects
of
FDR's
administration,
was
the
legitimacy
it
gave
to
socialism.
By
engrafting
socialism
onto
those
governing
principles
rID
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CPR,
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Cross
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_______
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J
embodied
in
the
Constitution,
FDR
injected
an
AIDS-like
virus
into
the
Nation's
intellectual
bloodstream,
a
virus
which
was
slow
to
develop
but
which
is
deadly
in
its
advanced
stages.
The
prime
reason
that
socialism,
the
idea,
killed
frecdom
was
the
popularity
of
FDR's
activitism.
What
had
been
only
a
peripheral
notion,
democracy,
was
put
front
and
center.
The
beauty
and
majesty
of
the
Constitution
was
its
organizational
structure,
which
was
designed
to
secure
the
blessings
of
liberty
to
all
(except
slaves,
it
must
be
admitted).
The
core
concept
of
that
organizational
structure
as
the
Republic,
wherein
representative
democracy
could
function.
The
important
thing
had
been
to
elect
our
Congressmen
by
popular
vote,
but
to
select
Senators
and
the
President
indirectly.
Democracy
was
far
from
being
the
sole
preoccupation
of
the
Framers;
in
fact,
many
of
the
Founding
Fathers
rightly
feared
an
excess
of
democracy.
Consistent
with
the
concept
of
a
government
of
limited
powers,
they
did
not
want
to
create
a
central
authority
which
would
take
it
upon
itself
to
do
all
things
for
all
who
were
strident
enough
in
their
demands.
They
wanted
to
establish
a
central
-
government
that
was
supreme
and
all-powerful
in
those
few
and
circumscribed
areas
in
which
it
was
given
authority.
But
they
also
were
desirous
of
confining
that
awful
power
to
its
proper
sphere.
By
conferring
upon
the
State,
i.e.,
all
government,
the
authority
to
remedy
any
and
all
social
ills,
socialism
not
only
rebukes
the
essential
characteristic
of
the
Constitution's
plan
of
limited
government,
but
it
ingratiates
itself
with
the
people
by
offering
them
paradise
on
earth.
By
opening
up
the
Federal
government
to
promote
social
welfare
boondoggles,
FDR
put
socialism
to
work
and
laid
the
foundation
for
socialism's
scizure
of
the
American
State
several
decades
later.
By
placing
an
emphasis
on
results,
rather
than
on
the
orderly
process
of
government,
socialism
was
able
to
brush
aside
questions
about
the
limited
role
of
government.
Aided
by
the
intolerable
situation
of
blacks
in
the
South,
socialism
was
able
to
spur
the
gigantic
growth
in
responsiblities
government
assumed
in
the
1960's
when
the
Welfare
State
went
from
toddler
to
young
adult.
The
need
for
the
Federal
government
to
come
to
the
aid
of
blacks
who
were
being
denied
their
civil
rights
by
the
white
majority
in
the
South
became
a
paradigm
for
all
Federal
action:
it
was
assumed
that
Washington
could
do
it
better.
Today
we
have
reached
the
point
where
the
entire
concept
of
limited
government
is
defunct.
It
is
never
even
considered
whether
government
may
properly
take
such
and
such
an
action,
whether
the
Constitutional
limitation
of
authority
bars
certain
actions,
whether
any
principle
of
republican
self-government
arises
to
block
an.
impending
program.
The
only
Ume
a
Constitutional
limit
is
invoked
is
on
behalf
of
abortionists,
pornographers,
or
common
criminals,
invocations
which
trample
the
graves
of
the
Framers.
The
Constitution
as
originally
conceived
is
finished.
The
Legislative
branch
wants
to
run
foreign
policy;
the
Judicial
branch
has
for
at
least
a
quarter
century
made
all
laws
with
respect
to
what
is
known
as
the
social
agenda.
The
Executive
branch,
lost
in
the
shuffle
enforces
the
laws
it
likes
and
breaks
those
it
docs
not:
it
will
fight
a
war
without
proper
declaration
and
abides
by
treaties
which
have
not
been
ratified.
The
main
problem
is
that
no-one
pay
any
heed
to
structure
anymore:
each
branch
is
governed
solely
by
its
own
sense
of
what
should
be.
It
is
an
ends
justifying
the
means
situation
writ
large.
The
Constitution
is
designed
to
be
obstructionist.
The
fewer
laws
and
treaties,
the
better.
Recently,
Jimmy
Carter,
when
asked
to
comment
on
the
Constitution,
remarked
that
it
was
too
bad
that
the
Senate
had
to
ratify
treaties,
what
with
all
the
work
the
Executive
puts
into
getting
one
agreed
to
by
the
other
side;
his
argument
was
that
the
present
system
is
too
obstructionist.
This
coming
from
a
former
President,
i.e.,
someone
sworn
to
uphold
the
Constitution.
It
is
painfully
obvious
that
Jimmy
Earl,
like
so
many
of
his
contemporaries,
has
no
idea
what
tlle
Constitution
is
all
about.
The
Constitution
is
designed
to
be
obstructionist.
The
fewer
laws
and
treaties,
the
better.
Much
is
always
made
about
the
Bill
of
Rights,
how
it
protects
our
freedoms.
But
it,
like
the
Constitution
to
which
it
is
amended,
is
only
a
piece
of
paper.
Without
the
proper
spirit,
no
documents
can
keep
us
free.
When
you
substitute
the
concept
of
an
ordered
republic
with
an
apotheosis
of
democracy,
when
democracy
becomes
the
touchstone
of
statutory
legitimacy,when
the
Bill
of
Rights
is
used
to
give
succor
to
social
parasites
and
misfits,
then
the
Constitution
becomes
merely
an
historical
artifact.
And
when
a
sitting
Justice
of
the
US
Supreme
Court
opines
that
the
original
Constitution
was
not
all
that
great,
because
it
omitted
blacks
and
women,
and
that
what
we
really
ought
to
vereate
is
the
14th
Amendment,
which
gave
the
Judges
the
Due
Process
cudget
by
which
to
impose
their
personal
policy
preferences
on
the
helpless
States,
then
it
may
not
be
premature
to
begin
counting
how
many
days
arc
left
before
the
United
States
of
America
crumbles
into
the
sea.
Copies
of
the
Honeoye
Falls
Times
,
.'
....
are
available
at
the
following
area
stores:
Bell's,
Big
M-Rush,
Emblidge
Pharmacy,
Milburn's
Big
M,
Rite-Aid,
Tenny's
and
Pride
Variety.
.
.....
...

Newspaper Page Text

Page 4 TIlURSDAY, MAY 21, 1987 THE LIMA RECORDER THE LIVONIA GAZETTE THE HONEOYE FALLS TIMES HONEOYE LAKE COURIER ~ Capi~al Ideas by John Lesniak, Albany Bureau Chief THE CONSTITUTION, R.I.P (Albany - 5/13/87) This year Americans shall be celebrating the bicentennial of our Constitution, that document conceived in liberty and born of genius. Instead, I suggest that we mourn its passing, for the Constitution, like other giants of the past, Shakespeare, Mozart, Bach, Washington, is dead. The exact date of its demise is still uncertain, but future historians shall probably concur that it caught a terminal disease circa 1933 and was felled in the mid- 1960's. The disease is socialism; its symptoms, massive government and oppressive taxation. The genius of the Constitution lay in the fact that it worked for so long. Liberals are fond of speaking of the Constitution as a \living document,\ by which they mean that it exists for today, free of historical baggage. As a pretext for twisting the plain language of the Constitution to fit whatever schemes strike the elites' fancy at any particular moment, the concept of the \living document\ is reprehensible. However, our founding charter was alive once: it was possessed of an overarching idea which infused an animating spirit into its words, and that idea was freedom. Freedom was the genesis of the Constitution. Freedom was what the Constitution sought to promote. Freedom was the lodestar by which all its precepts were guide<i And freedom was the living idea which the constitution handed down through the generations. The Constitution was written to secure our freedom, freedom from foreign countries, freedom from unwarranted intrusions into daily life, and freedom from the tyranny of the majority. The Constitution put forth a mechanism for guaranteeing that freedom: separation of powers. By splitting up the central government into three coequal branches, and leaving vast domains to the States, the Framers wanted to make things rough on whoever was in control. They wanted to make it difficult to enact legislation, believing that by erecting a formidible gaultlet only meritorious statutes would pass. The emphasis was on preventing the government from acting, reining in the impulse to dictate, curbing the desire to legislate one person's, or one faction's, version of the good society. Presciently sensing the terrible havoc which would be wrought by the social engineers of the 20th Century, the Framers tried their best to insure that even if the people-who-think-they-have- all-the-answers got into power, they could not do too much damage. The genius of the Constitution lay in the fact that it worked for so long. For about 150 years, the Federal Government operated pretty much as envisioned by the Framers. Then came FDR. The patrician Roosevelt was going to solve the problems created by the Great Depression; as with most government programs, he made the problems worse. But he made the people feel good, made them feel secure, made them feel as if LIMA DEPT~ CARNIVAL June 24, 25, 26 & 27 they could rely on government to bail them out. And the people liked that. The people liked hearing that someone else, government, was going to rescue them, that they did not have to worry about their fate. The Constitution put forth a mechanism for guaranteeing that freedom: separation of powers. The problem, of course, was that all this government intervention did not come without costs. There was the immediate cost in terms of dollars: if the government was going to spend money to help out the citizenry, then it had to get the cash from somebody, and that somebody had to be the citizenry. The personal income tax, which had heretofore only been used against the very rich, was turned against the middle class. Knowing that most people would take to the streets in armed rebellion when presented with a bill for a whole year's taxes, that most pernicious form of larceny was visited upon all wage earners: withholding. With the institution of withholding, workers could be robbn..,d a little each week and lulled into a utopian stupor with politicians' dreams about the blessings of just one more government program. But worse than the practical effects of FDR's administration, was the legitimacy it gave to socialism. By engrafting socialism onto those governing principles rID LEARN CPR, PLEASE. Take a I,fe,av,ng Red Cross CPR course. rJ~ American Red Cross p-------------------------------- I ~ I I I I I I I I I I I I New and Improved Livonia Gazette· Honeoye Falls Times Lima Recorder • Honeoye Lake Courier at: the new low price of $1 0 OO/year add S1.50 if • out of county I N Please indicat~ ythich newspaper I I arne you are subSCribing to: I I Address 0 Livonia Gazette I I 0 Honeoye-Falls Times I I Please enclose check or money order paynble 10 0 Lima Recorder I I Downtown Magazine Inc. 0 Honeoye Lake Courier I I 36 Main Street I I Livonia, NY 14487 I l _______ §l!~§f!ig~_][Q~~ _______ J embodied in the Constitution, FDR injected an AIDS-like virus into the Nation's intellectual bloodstream, a virus which was slow to develop but which is deadly in its advanced stages. The prime reason that socialism, the idea, killed frecdom was the popularity of FDR's activitism. What had been only a peripheral notion, democracy, was put front and center. The beauty and majesty of the Constitution was its organizational structure, which was designed to secure the blessings of liberty to all (except slaves, it must be admitted). The core concept of that organizational structure as the Republic, wherein representative democracy could function. The important thing had been to elect our Congressmen by popular vote, but to select Senators and the President indirectly. Democracy was far from being the sole preoccupation of the Framers; in fact, many of the Founding Fathers rightly feared an excess of democracy. Consistent with the concept of a government of limited powers, they did not want to create a central authority which would take it upon itself to do all things for all who were strident enough in their demands. They wanted to establish a central - government that was supreme and all-powerful in those few and circumscribed areas in which it was given authority. But they also were desirous of confining that awful power to its proper sphere. By conferring upon the State, i.e., all government, the authority to remedy any and all social ills, socialism not only rebukes the essential characteristic of the Constitution's plan of limited government, but it ingratiates itself with the people by offering them paradise on earth. By opening up the Federal government to promote social welfare boondoggles, FDR put socialism to work and laid the foundation for socialism's scizure of the American State several decades later. By placing an emphasis on results, rather than on the orderly process of government, socialism was able to brush aside questions about the limited role of government. Aided by the intolerable situation of blacks in the South, socialism was able to spur the gigantic growth in responsiblities government assumed in the 1960's when the Welfare State went from toddler to young adult. The need for the Federal government to come to the aid of blacks who were being denied their civil rights by the white majority in the South became a paradigm for all Federal action: it was assumed that Washington could do it better. Today we have reached the point where the entire concept of limited government is defunct. It is never even considered whether government may properly take such and such an action, whether the Constitutional limitation of authority bars certain actions, whether any principle of republican self-government arises to block an. impending program. The only Ume a Constitutional limit is invoked is on behalf of abortionists, pornographers, or common criminals, invocations which trample the graves of the Framers. The Constitution as originally conceived is finished. The Legislative branch wants to run foreign policy; the Judicial branch has for at least a quarter century made all laws with respect to what is known as the social agenda. The Executive branch, lost in the shuffle enforces the laws it likes and breaks those it docs not: it will fight a war without proper declaration and abides by treaties which have not been ratified. The main problem is that no-one pay any heed to structure anymore: each branch is governed solely by its own sense of what should be. It is an ends justifying the means situation writ large. The Constitution is designed to be obstructionist. The fewer laws and treaties, the better. Recently, Jimmy Carter, when asked to comment on the Constitution, remarked that it was too bad that the Senate had to ratify treaties, what with all the work the Executive puts into getting one agreed to by the other side; his argument was that the present system is too obstructionist. This coming from a former President, i.e., someone sworn to uphold the Constitution. It is painfully obvious that Jimmy Earl, like so many of his contemporaries, has no idea what tlle Constitution is all about. The Constitution is designed to be obstructionist. The fewer laws and treaties, the better. Much is always made about the Bill of Rights, how it protects our freedoms. But it, like the Constitution to which it is amended, is only a piece of paper. Without the proper spirit, no documents can keep us free. When you substitute the concept of an ordered republic with an apotheosis of democracy, when democracy becomes the touchstone of statutory legitimacy,when the Bill of Rights is used to give succor to social parasites and misfits, then the Constitution becomes merely an historical artifact. And when a sitting Justice of the US Supreme Court opines that the original Constitution was not all that great, because it omitted blacks and women, and that what we really ought to vereate is the 14th Amendment, which gave the Judges the Due Process cudget by which to impose their personal policy preferences on the helpless States, then it may not be premature to begin counting how many days arc left before the United States of America crumbles into the sea. Copies of the Honeoye Falls Times , .' .... are available at the following area stores: Bell's, Big M-Rush, Emblidge Pharmacy, Milburn's Big M, Rite-Aid, Tenny's and Pride Variety. . ..... ...